Hi dtnpsi,
We do have the NI-DAQmx 8.7.1 Run-Time 5 available for users to download. That is smallest installer we provide. I understand that its still a larger installer than you would like and we are working on addressing those issues in the future.
1) Your end-user has probably installed multiple versions of DAQmx on that target system via the driver CD. When you install from the driver CD, the assemblies are thrown into the GAC. When you distribute a DAQmx .NET application via a installer which uses our merge modules, the DAQmx assemblies by default will be thrown into the application directory. Both these scenarios are fine. The big picture to remember is that an application is built against a specific version of an assembly and this means it will be looking for that unique specific version. So if you built against DAQmx 8.3 and you happened to have both the 8.3 and 8.5 DAQmx assemblies in the GAC, your application would use the 8.3 version.
2) Currently you cannot eliminate the driver CD from your install steps. The setup application you create that includes the .NET merge modules only includes the .NET components for DAQmx and not the underlying DAQmx DLLs. This is why you need to run the driver CD on the end-user side. Really, in your case you just need to be running the individual DAQmx installers instead of the driver CD if that's all the drivers you are using. You can download those installers off the web.
Now, I can tell you that we are aware of this issue (i.e. to make it easier to bundle your .NET app with the underlying drivers) and plan on addressing the issue in the future. However, I would like you to submit a product suggestion to us indicating your request for this feature. The more suggestions we get, the more likely you are to see the feature sooner.
Best Regards,
Jonathan N.
National Instruments
